Make sure the benefits of your solution are relevant to the person to whom you are proposing them. You will often see examples of irrelevant benefit selling particularly if the ‘establishing need’ part of the selling cycle has been poorly carried out.

A frequent investment that companies make is in improving their distribution systems. They buy automated warehouses, new fleets of vehicles or new computer systems but the aim in each case is the same – to physically possess their products for as short a time as possible. The measure of success of all of these improvements is the resulting change in stock turnover. This is a ratio of stock held to sales turno­ver. Some people quote it as the number of times stock is turned over in a year, others by the number of days stock is held either in vehicles or in a warehouse or factory. How do you sell this benefit?

When selling to the accountants the experienced salesperson will emphasise the reduction in the amount of stock held, since that is a relatively concrete outcome that the company can control.

The same argument expressed to sales directors will lead to despairing cries of, ‘But we cannot give our customers what they want in the timescale they require it with the current levels of stock. Don’t make it worse.’ The benefit of improved stock control for sales directors comes from increased sales caused by the better availabil­ity of stock due to the new investment.

In actuality the benefits will be a mixture of the two, decreased stocks in some areas and more sales in others. Perhaps the mixture is the right way to sell to the managing director.

Don’t forget that benefits have a personal edge. Selling a big productivity hike to the person in charge of the people who will be let go as the result of your project is probably not good tactics, unless you show that you and your company can bring real help to him or her as they face the redundant staff and their loss of empire.

Keep asking the ‘so-what?’ question:

My solution has this feature. So what?

You will be able to make do with one truck less. So what?

Your people will get more job satisfaction if they do it this way. So what?

It is the answer to this question, in relation solely to the person you are talking to, that identifies the real benefit of your proposal.

About the Author: Bruno Silva is an entrepreneur from Portugal with over 15 years of experience in Online Marketing. He is also a blogger and writes on variety of topics from online marketing to designs, cars to loans, etc.